


The Box

by notjustmom



Series: The Mentalist [9]
Category: The Mentalist
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Established Patrick Jane/Teresa Lisbon, F/M, season 7
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-13
Updated: 2019-11-13
Packaged: 2021-01-30 06:48:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21423952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notjustmom/pseuds/notjustmom
Summary: A scene I imagined this morning...
Relationships: Patrick Jane/Teresa Lisbon
Series: The Mentalist [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1526000
Comments: 7
Kudos: 48





	The Box

When Lisbon got home after a long ridiculous day to a dark house, she felt for her piece and whispered, “Jane?” as she entered the kitchen, only to freeze when she realized what he was doing, more precisely, what he was reading, or had been reading when darkness had fallen.

“Jane.”

“Sorry.”

“How long have you been sitting here?”

“Uhm. Hmm. What time is it?”

“Eight fifteen?”

“That late.”

“Yeah.”

“I was, uhm, putting some of my books on the bookcase, and I saw the box, and you know me…”

“Yes, I do.”

“And I carried the box into the kitchen, made myself some tea, I don’t know around two o’clock, sat down again and opened the box, and realized what it was, and I didn’t know, I mean you said you had read them, but I didn’t know -”

She sat down next to him and waited.

“I didn’t know, I hadn't realized how much I actually told you about myself, I was just -”

“Yeah, I know.” She opened the box and pulled out the last letter she had received, sent the day before he had left Mexico. “This letter - it got to me after you had rejected the FBI’s offer and were in detention, and they wouldn’t give you my letters. This was the first time, the very first time in the years after you had gone, actually the first time in the over twelve years that we'd known each other, that you actually truly apologized to me. This letter is the reason I left Washington. It’s why I gave you another chance, gave us a chance. 

I’ve loved you, been in love with you - whatever - since I - honestly - I can put a date on it, or at least a case on it. The bombing, when you couldn’t see for three days. When you touched my face to see what my smile felt like. I mean, I liked you before, you were my friend, my partner, but, at that moment -”

“When you saved my life, from that crazy couple who was stalking red heads, that was the day when I knew -”

She blinked at him. “That long ago.”

“Yep. I just couldn’t do anything with it. Feelings. Never been good at them, organizing them, they are messy, they don’t fit in,” he nodded at the box in front of them, and whispered, “boxes. They don’t sit neatly on a shelf in my memory palace, they leak out. So many times I wanted to tell you, and those two years, when I couldn’t hear your voice or see you, smell you as you stood next to me on a crime scene, hear your laughter - that was my penance - it was a beautiful prison, but without you, life is a prison.” 

She got up from her chair and moved to stand behind him, and smiled down into his face as he leaned back to look her. “I am so very lucky, that you walked into my life, Patrick Jane. The reasons for it were terrible, and I would never wish such pain on my worst enemy, but I know my life would have been so much less without you in it. I love you, so very, very much. You are my heart - my joy - and yet you send me out into the world, this crazy and dangerous world, even as I know it scares you, every single day, you let me know that you understand me, better than anyone has or ever will.” She closed her eyes as she felt his fingers wrap into her hair and pulled her into a whisper of a kiss.

“Love you, Lisbon.”

“Hungry?”

“Starving.”


End file.
